


Living Nightmares

by i_know_its_0ver



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Concentration Camps, Disturbing Themes, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-18
Updated: 2013-09-18
Packaged: 2017-12-26 22:24:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/970984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_know_its_0ver/pseuds/i_know_its_0ver
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Charles is 10 years old, he begins having dreams about dark, sad places, and a boy with anger burning in his eyes; a boy trapped in the darkness, and Charles can't reach him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> A friend asked me for a Charles/Erik prompt once, and for some reason my brain immediately went to very dark, very sad places. She never ended up using the prompt, and a couple months later it was still on my mind, so I wrote it. 
> 
> WARNINGS. This story deals with the concentration camps. There is nothing graphic, mostly just vague impressions and images, but it is pretty dark and depressing. 
> 
> This is a canon divergence AU, where Charles connects with Erik in his dreams while they're still young, before they know about each other, or fully understand their powers.

When Charles is 10 years old, he wakes up one night with a heartrending cry that startles Raven from down the hall, and leaves him sobbing and breathless. He can’t remember the dream, only that he was afraid, so very, very afraid, and not even Raven’s familiar hand in his can shake the feeling. He doesn’t sleep again that night. 

A few nights later he dreams again. This time he has the impression of a dark place, made of wood and metal, with no light, no air, no space. Just the press of bodies all around him, but the feeling of being alone, completely alone. There are moans and cries from the darkness, and a woman weeping softly. It’s familiar, and that sound scares him most of all. 

Charles wakes with tears on his cheeks and Raven watching him with concern. After that she takes to sharing his bed and holding his hand while he dreams. 

The nightmares get worse. They also become clearer. In them, Charles sees swarms of nameless faces, gaunt and bald and hollow-eyed. 

And then, amidst the blank faces, there is a little boy: taller than Charles, perhaps a little older. His skin is pale and dirty, his brown hair matted down, his clothes filthy and hanging off his skinny frame. But most of all, Charles notices his eyes. His eyes are scared, but they also contain an endless well of _anger_. So much anger it makes Charles flinch back, makes him grasp Raven’s hand tighter in his sleep. There’s something about this boy that draws Charles, something unlike any of the other sad, hopeless faces. A flame burning bright in the darkness. Charles doesn’t want to look, but can’t seem to look away. 

He sees the boy almost every night. Some nights the dreams are vague, only a sense of grief and anger and hatred. Other nights they are painfully, vividly clear. Charles can see every tile on the floor of the room where they take the boy, each speck of blood marring the shiny metal tabletops. He can hear a voice, oily and dangerous, like a coiled snake, telling him to do things. Again. Farther. Longer. With control. _Again, Erik, or else._

He can feel the boy’s simmering rage every time the man speaks to him. Some days there is sadness and grief and hopelessness. Others, the anger drowns out everything else. And sometimes, the pain overrides all ability to feel. 

Some nights the dreams change, and there is a woman, her dark hair covered in a flowered kerchief, her bright eyes shining as she hums an unfamiliar tune. These nights Charles wakes sobbing, and he can’t understand why they make him so impossibly sad. 

Raven watches, and offers what comfort she can. She never asks, and he rarely tells, but she doesn’t need to know the details anyway. When Charles tries to give up sleeping, she joins him in solidarity, but it only lasts two days before Charles’ body gives in and he falls back into the dreams. During the days she invents new games for them to take his mind off things, and sometimes it works. But never for long. 

Charles wants to offer the boy in his dreams the same comfort, to hold his hand the way Raven holds his own. But for some reason, in his dreams, his abilities desert him. He can’t reach the boy’s mind, like he can Raven’s or his parents’ or anyone else he’s ever met. In his dreams he’s powerless to do anything but observe and feel and suffer. 

The dreams continue for months, and just as suddenly as they began, they stop. It should be a relief, but in the back of his mind, Charles can still see the little boy with the blazing eyes, and even though it was just a dream, Charles worries about him. It’s silly, but he can’t shake the feeling that he’s abandoned him to the dark corners of his nightmares, all alone. 

\---

By the time the world learns the truth about what they’re calling ‘the camps,’ the dreams have stopped. Charles would feel relieved, if it weren’t for the lingering weight of guilt like a stone in his belly. 

The first time he sees the newsreel footage, he nearly vomits, watching scenes from his nightmares splashed thirty feet tall in cinematic black and white. Raven holds his hand until the images fade from the screen, but they never again fade from his mind. 

The nightmares come back, only they change. They no longer have the immediacy they once did, the feeling of fresh agony, of personal loss. Instead they’re like the photos in the newspapers, haunting, but indistinct, anonymous. And amongst the nameless masses of suffering, he never again sees the little boy with the defiant eyes. 

Over time he manages to re-order the events in his head, to convince himself that the dreams began after the omnipresence of the news footage, that they were simply a child’s reaction to horrors he couldn’t understand. Eventually he manages to forget the boy entirely, all except for a name, whispered in heartbroken sobs. _Erik. Bitte._

\---

When Charles meets Erik Lehnsherr years later, there’s no immediate dawning of recognition. The first time he peers into Erik’s mind, in the icy, chaotic waters, it is full of nothing but panic and anger. There are no memories, no reasoning, just a hot flare of pulsing fury like Charles has never felt. 

It isn’t until later that Charles connects the name Shaw with Schmidt, and the suddenness of the memories is overwhelming. _Mein Erik,_ a voice from his nightmares whispers, full of false affection and the promise of pain. _Mein herrlich Erik._

And in that moment, Charles knows: that this is as much his mission as it is Erik’s. That there was once a little boy he could not save from his suffering, but he can save him now from himself, from the darkness that Shaw planted inside of him. That this time, he can help Erik find the peace he could not offer twenty years ago. 

Peace. For both of them, and the scared little boys they once were.


End file.
